Arthur Leung(poetry) and Royston Tester(prose) will act as guest editors and read the submissions with the editors Tamara Hoand Jeff Zroback. Please contact Reviews EditorEddie Tay at eddie@asiancha.comif you want to review a book or have a book reviewed in the journal. (Please note that we're working with a 2-3 issue backlog with reviews.)

.

We love returning contributors - past contributors are very welcome to send us their new works.

If you have any questions, please feel free to write to any of theCha staff ateditors@asiancha.com.

Friday, 10 June 2016

We would like to thank guest editors ​B.B.P. Hosmillo (poetry) and Mag Tan (prose) for reading the submissions with us and helping us put together ​the new edition. We would also like to thank Eddie Tay for the fine selection of book reviews and Reid Mitchell for co-editing (with Tammy Ho Lai-Ming) the special "Distance" poetry section, which is in collaboration with Health in Action, a Hong Kong charity that promotes community health and wellbeing through the empowerment of the underprivileged. The issue also features an editorial entitled "Observations" by Tammy Ho.

The following writers/artists have generously allowed us to showcase their work:

My love for you is not like new linens—nice for the first week but shrinking after the first wash.“If” is the French for yew. A coniferous tree.I wish I knew who sent me this dream: “Tammy (or Lai-Ming?), I had a dream about you last night. You were managing a restaurant and were very busy. I couldn't understand why you would become a restaurateur in addition to all the other things you do—teaching, editing, writing, loving—but I figured it is best not to interfere. I went to the opening, you and your colleagues were working and I just tried to be quiet. But there was a big mistake with the food, the cook had not prepared the potatoes right. It did not seem like such a good restaurant. At some point you and a friend of yours (who was also one of the restaurant owners) and I went to buy candy. I hesitated to pay for the candy, because I didn't want to subsidise your failing restaurant business. But then it turned out that you wanted the candy for yourself, so I cordially offered to pay after all. But you had already paid. You didn't need my money (and what else could I offer?) Then your friend got shot for no reason. And we needed to catch a train, but we were late. And we got into the wrong train or bus. And then I woke up.”

“Good night, my little Brussels sprout.”

I wear the world map as though it's a dress. You can touch me on Hong Kong.

On the street where his gym is there is a bookshop called Le Merle moqueur (The Mockingbird) and a café called Le Colibri (The Hummingbird) though this odd coincidence might be lost on French speakers.

“We are fucked” is not very difficult English to master.

“I am going to bed now, my little miraculous medal.”

The horrible thought that one can walk past any number of people without knowing any of their names. The narcissism of this thought.

Making proving people wrong our goal.

Did you know? Humans are the only mammals that can’t breathe and swallow at the same time. Did you know? Mosquitoes prefer biting people who are inebriated. Did you know? There are tongue prints.

“Good night my little duffel bag.”

It is not misunderstanding but partial understanding. One has to guard one's story, one's history, so much, these days.

Your games are so small I need a microscope to see them.

Some say distance makes the hearts fonder. Some say out of sight, out of mind.

On language fluency: I know it when I hear it.

I sometimes feel like I am a yew tree whose roots have been cemented..The Chinese government hasn't censored the temperature in Hong Kong yet.

“I am going to bed now, my little doubloon.”

I should have been born with bigger breasts. I am the kind of woman who would ask people to describe me in five adjectives.

In a Chinese restaurant in Europe. I imagine all is a cover up for some illicit business. The entire family fled China. Duck tongues. Aubergine. Like a film by Jia Zhangke. Takeaway, not good. The sauces congeal quickly. The woman is like a gangster woman. You are the only foreigner when we get in. And I am the only Chinese when we leave. I order chicken feet, thinking they were going to be chilied but they were chilled. The woman who speaks exaggerated accented Italian. The husband knows nothing.

An old Cantonese pop song can be the music that ignites my memory when I am old and have dementia.

“I am off to bed now. I love you, my little artichoke heart.”

It is exhausting when you deal with walls.

My father wanted to be more handsome, perhaps. But the mole, after it was removed, left a faint dent. Where was it? On his right cheek... if I remember correctly. It only now exists in memory and old photos that you cannot zoom in to. When I was small I was myself made fun of because of the mole that sits in my philtrum. If I die, my mole will tell you it's me.

Should I give you an old pair of high heels to remember me by? Of course not.

Slept for a bit and dreamt of naked us in a room of empty frames; we are mid-conversation, not an argument, but somehow you are hurt and I console you. I ask “Look at me. Do you know?” You give a non-smile, like you sometimes do. And then I woke up. I am sleepy again now.

Monday, 28 March 2016

We are very pleased to announce that Issue​ 31​ of Cha is now available. We would like to thank guest editors​Jason S Polley (poetry) and Sreedhevi Iyer (prose) for reading the submissions with us and helping us put together ​the edition. We would also like to thank Eddie Tay for the fine selection of book reviews. The issue also ​features an editorial entitled "​Peculiar Imperatives"by Tammy Ho Lai-Ming.

The followingwriters/artists have generously allowed us to showcase their work:

Our next issue i​s scheduled for publication in June 2016. We are currently accepting submissions for Issue 33, due out in September 2016. If you are interested in having your work considered for inclusion in Cha, please read our submission guidelinescarefully.

Wednesday, 23 March 2016

I am a proud, obsessive aunt. I ask my sisters to tag me whenever they post pictures and videos of my niece and nephew on Facebook. These are the notifications I love to receive the most. I play the videos over and over and I often have a few pictures of my little relatives open on my laptop when I am preparing for a lecture, agonising over research or reading Cha submissions.My favourite picture of the past few weeks is one of my niece wearing a red top that I bought her for Lunar New Year. She's smiling and looking contentedly at an empty rice bowl. The bowl, bigger than her head, is made of plastic and has several traditional Chinese characters on it. Three jubilant bunnies dance on her blue bib. Like her "Big Aunt Mother" 大姨媽 (me!) her eyebrows are thick and well-shaped, while her hair is dark, sleek.I am infatuated by that utterly sweet, satisfied smile on her face. Why is she so happy holding an empty bowl? What is the secret? What is on her mind?I wish I could be happy so easily.Instead, I find myself gloomier and more sullen by the month, by the week, by the day. I sometimes get annoyed at the smallest things. I sometimes really do not want to smile at people. Sometimes, on the worst days, I carry a face that announces "I am not impressed" wherever I go. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that I project a negative aura which wipes out the joy of others. This is partly why I worry about going to public events or being in a crowd. I'll only murder your happiness!But that doesn't mean that I am down or bitchy all the time. I do appreciate minor amusements and there are many moments when I suddenly realise that I am contented, that I have been engrossed by something I am reading or a face in front of me. That life, after all, does not have to be an aggressive trial of the spirit. No longer looking for constant excitement and laughter, these little moments sustain my days—a moderate rather than a gluttonous diet.Looking at the picture of my niece, I hope she can remain this innocent, this happy, for many years to come. One day, she will learn that she has to put food in the bowl herself and that those who love her however deeply can’t give her everything that she needs. But most importantly, I hope she will learn to be able to just let "The hours flow… amiable, carefree, almost happy."* Tammy Ho Lai-Ming / Co-editorCha23 March 2016. .*Claudio Magris, Microcosms (translated from the Italian by Iain Halliday), p. 12...

Tuesday, 9 February 2016

In collaboration with Health in Action, a Hong Kong charity
that promotes community health and wellbeing through the empowerment of the
underprivileged, Cha is publishing a
special section of poetry on the theme of “Distance” in its June 2016 issue.

The publication of the special section will coincide with
Health in Action’s Refugee Week Art Movement (week of 20 June 2016) to raise
awareness for asylum seekers and refugees in Hong Kong. (Note: 20 June 2016 is
World Refugee Day.)

Monday, 28 December 2015

Cha has nominated Henry Wei Leung's short fiction "Getting There", published in the March 2015 issue, for inclusion in theQueen's Ferry Press anthology, The Best Small Fictions 2016, which seeks flash of 1000 words or fewer published in 2015.

We are bulbous and abundant and may one day find a form in language for
eternal presence. I teach my students in Hong Kong to write wish poems
using the subjunctive the conditional the retrospective but this is
wrong, this is corrected English and is wrong for them. They write their
wishes into the same present tense as the wishing itself. (I wish my
mom is a magician.) (I wish I have a silly sister.) (I wish people don't
think I'm weird.) The wish is desired and is.

To read the whole piece, please visit here. We thank the editors of Queen's Ferry Press for the invitation to nominate work and we wish Henry the best of luck!

B.B.P. Hosmillo(poetry) and Mag Tan (prose) will act as guest editors and read the submissions with the editors Tamara Ho and Jeff Zroback. Please contact Reviews EditorEddie Tay at eddie@asiancha.com if you want to review a book or have a book reviewed in the journal. (Please note that we're working with a 2-3 issue backlog with reviews.) . We love returning contributors - past contributors are very welcome to send us their new works.

If you have any questions, please feel free to write to any of theCha staff ateditors@asiancha.com.-

Our next issue is scheduled for publication in March 2016. We are currently accepting submissions for theJune 2016 issue. If you are interested in having your work considered for inclusion in Cha, please read our submission guidelinescarefully.

Thank
you for joining us for our Eighth Anniversary Issue. I am not sure that
neither my co-editor Jeff Zrobacknor I would have imagined at the
beginning that Chawould have lasted this long.

But here we are.

When
we started, we knew very little about running a journal, and to be
frank, we still have a lot to learn.

Even the slowest student will
pick up a few lessons in eight years—in my case, it has been about one a
year.

1. Without hard work—especially that of your editors,
writers, artists and webmaster—you would have long ago ended up an
abandoned page on a forgotten server. But, on this of all anniversaries,
you must also admit that it has taken a lot of good luck too.

2. As much as you would like to think that you are still a start-up,
after eight years online, you need to admit that in Internet years you
are decidedly middle-aged.

3. There are three ways of coping with rude emails.

4. You will be happy every time you hear about a past contributor's
success. Sometimes you might even congratulate yourself for having
spotted their talent.

5. As soon as you put out an issue, you will start worrying about the next one …

6. even though you know it will come out just fine.

7. As much as you may complain, you find deep satisfaction in the work—even dealing with rude emails.

8. You know that, like most things in life, your efforts will be
fleeting and one day may end up on a forgotten sever. But you also know
that you are not ready for that day yet.

Thank you so much for
having been with us for the past eight years. I hope you will stay with
us and help our fleeting efforts last many more.

Jason S Polley(poetry) and Sreedhevi Iyer (prose) will act as guest editors and read the submissions with the editors Tamara Ho and Jeff Zroback. Please contact Reviews EditorEddie Tay at eddie@asiancha.comif you want to review a book or have a book reviewed in the journal..
We love returning contributors - past contributors are very welcome to send us their new works.

If you have any questions, please feel free to write to any of theCha staff at editors@asiancha.com.-